Ah, the patriotism exhibited from one of the largest U.S. defense contractors. This is but one more revelation that should bring a tear to the eye of all loyal Americans who wait anxiously in front of the good old boob tube for the next Boeing commercial, complete with resplendent and noble sounding music.

Yes, this is old news, but insightful with regard to the continuing mis-deeds of a corporation bigger than the United States Government. Some days it is difficult to tell the two apart.

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High-flying crime

Boeing’s latest fine sends its corporate rap sheet soaring to $100 million in the last three years.

Rick Anderson

Published on April 18, 2001

ABOUT THE TIME Seattle was lamenting the planned relocation of Boeing headquarters last month, top company officials were quietly finishing up a settlement for yet another violation of U.S. law.

The resulting $3.8 million fine by the U.S. State Department, for illegally offering protected military technology to Australia and five other countries, brought to more than $100 million the amount of government-related fines and settlements levied against Boeing in just the past three years. In assessing the latest fine, the government alleged Boeing racked up 110 violations of U.S. export-control laws.

Boeing’s corporate rap sheet, which dates back at least three decades, wasn’t among the sentimental regrets of Seattleites mourning the headquarters shift. Nor was it one of the selling points brought up in recent weeks as Chicago, Denver, and Dallas officials fell to their knees in hopes Boeing would dub one of their towns the site of the new home office.

But besides getting the headquarters of the world’s biggest plane maker, the winner of the relocation pageant will also get the ivory tower that has helped make Boeing one of the world’s great achievers in the field of corporate wrongdoing.

Historically, the company has publicly renounced some violations while privately winking at others. Boeing’s unwritten rule that some rules can be broken has resulted in decades of settlements, fines, and penalties sought by individuals and the U.S. departments of Justice, State, and Defense, as well as the Federal Trade and Securities Exchange commissions, for bribery, kickbacks, fraud, and military contract and export law violations.

It’s a legal game played by most big corporations, especially defense contractors, that sometimes costs consumers and taxpayers dearly. But Boeing has outshone most other large companies by having both commercial and military products to market, legally and illegally.

Boeing denies it intentionally sets out to violate the law, and says many disputes and claims result merely from differing interpretations of U.S. law and policy. That was partly its explanation in the most recent case.

STATE DEPARTMENT investigators say Boeing illegally promised to share military technology it was barred from exporting to another country—mainly, in this instance, Australia. In a 1998 team competition, Boeing and partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems won a $1 billion contract for an Australian airborne radar system called Wedgetail that included four 737s and options for other planes.

Boeing gave itself the edge in the bidding by offering to provide the data and know-how that could make the Australian system equal to the U.S. AWACS system—technology that by law cannot be exported. Boeing proposed similar deals to Singapore, Turkey, Malaysia, Spain, and Italy, says the State Department, breaking so many U.S. laws it would be hard to overlook them.

But Boeing realized its errors, says Patrick Gill, Boeing’s vice president for 737 Airborne Early Warning and Control, and blew the whistle on itself.

“We had an intense marketing campaign [and] didn’t realize violations had occurred until later. We reviewed the program and discovered potential violations,” he says. “We notified State and took corrective action.”

Under the seven-page settlement agreement signed March 30, the State Department took its main action only on the Australian case. It is allowing Boeing to pay the fine in installments through 2004. The agreement also calls for Boeing to spend $400,000 of the fine on itself, creating a special new office to monitor export law compliance.

Around the time it made the illegal offer to Australia in 1998, Boeing had just been fined $10 million by the State Department for a similar export law violation as part of its Sea Launch program. Shouldn’t that have alerted someone that Boeing was already flunking its export law tests? Gill would say only that despite past violations the company is preventively geared up now, having schooled 1,200 workers on export law etiquette.

Was the ultimate message for Boeing in the Australian case—a $3.8 million fine weighed against a $1 billion contract—that such violations can be cost-effective?

Boeing veep Gill disputes that notion. “You may consider it a small fine in your business,” he tells me, “but I consider this a large fine, and it goes directly against the profits of this company and this program, and it’s definitely not taken lightly.”

But Boeing’s history contains a lot of evidence to the contrary. In 1982, for example, facing criminal charges for failing to disclose $7.3 million in “irregular commissions” given to agents and others to induce overseas plane sales, Boeing’s then Chair T. A. Wilson walked into court, entered a guilty plea, and handed over a check for $450,000.

Within years, unrepentant Boeing was back in court. In 1989, the company pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking in classified Pentagon documents and was hit with a $5 million criminal penalty; a former exec also got a short prison term for theft of documents. In 1991, two former Boeing execs, then with the Department of the Navy, each got prison terms as part of a major military contract-procurement scandal involving Boeing and other defense contractors who sought an inside edge.

Currently, the company faces lingering bribery claims. In a case on appeal in Florida, $2.8 million has been awarded to a Canadian businessman who claimed Boeing put him out of business by running a $786,000 bribery scheme to grease the $64 million sale of jets to Bahamasair in 1989 (a Bahamian government investigation backed his claim).

WHILE CRIMINAL and civil charges have been mostly about money—ranging from commercial airline kickbacks to foreign royal families in the 1970s to defrauding American taxpayers through defense contracts in the 1990s—sometimes lives are said to be at risk.

One of the latest cases, a $61.5 million Boeing settlement in Ohio, was settled last year by whistle-blower Brett Roby and the Justice Department, who accused Boeing of hiding flawed parts on U.S. military choppers, which the U.S. says led to at least one fatal crash (see “Death by chopper,” SW, 8/17/00).

A similar ongoing $20 million lawsuit by an Arizona whistle-blower—also backed by the Justice Department—alleges Boeing has knowingly delivered Apache choppers to the Army since 1984 with faulty devices that led to more than 2,000 unnecessary landings in recent years (see “Floppy choppers,” SW, 7/6/00). Boeing denies the device is at fault.

Is crossing the line just the cost of doing business for Boeing? After all, the government indicts with one hand but with another offers a new contract. Is a bribe here, an illegal promise there OK if it gets the job done? Some critics charge Boeing has become so emboldened that it effectively extended a bribe offer to all of Congress last fall when CEO Phil Condit, pushing for a Boeing-backed pro-China trade vote, prominently announced in D.C. that “We will be supporting people [politicians] that believe in the direction we do.”

Gill says it’s a mistake to think of Boeing and corruption in the same sentence, at least today, despite the recent fines.

“I really resent the implication,” he offers. “If you’re talking about the ethics of Boeing, the Boeing Company by policy and action adheres to the absolute highest standards. Even things that would not have been considered a violation perhaps in other companies we disclose because we are under the microscope [of oversight agencies]. We stay under the boundaries even if that means walking away and losing a contract. That’s Boeing.”

Boeing again delays initial

787 test flight

Forbes posted a short announcement that the Boeing Company has again delayed the first test flight of the 787 jetliner. This aircraft is a hoped for boon for Boeing, with many presales. Its success is very important to the success and perhaps even survival of the company.

Forbes reported that Boeing said it is being delayed again so they can “reinforce small areas near the connection of the wings and fuselage before conducting the test flight.” Boeing says the test will occur before July. That would be only a few days from now. Boeing continues to revise the delivery schedule for customers.

Boeing’s main competition for this type of sale is the Airbus SA. Both Boeing and Airbus are reported to be fighting the receding orders due to the recession, and a decline of air travel in general.

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One has to wonder why Boeing is having so many technical problems that seem to be lagging in finding solutions. Some of my readers have suggested that the continuing brain drain at Boeing has had its effect. More than one person suggested that Boeing’s alleged cannibalizing of technology and material from one project using it on other projects at Boeing’s whim, has also put a damper on new technology development and creativity on the part of those who are supposed to be the creative problem solvers working there.

When you look at all the news reports, many of which are referenced on this site, regarding problems with satellites, border fences, technical problems involving safety and airworthiness on planes, and development of new products which will meet the needs of government defense projects as well as commercial air demands, one must give it more than a cursory thought.

July 21, 2009

Shelley Stark’s book is now available at Amazon.com, and other book sellers online and locally. Get your copy today! Then come in and post your comments here!

-GFS

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July 2, 2009 (10:24 p.m. PacificTime)

I have been informed by someone who was going in to the publisher’s site this evening to order multiple copies to distribute within their government office that the publisher has taken down the button allowing purchase of the complete book through the publisher this evening.

I checked and that does seem to be the case. I am afraid we may have overwhelmed them, as the book does not actually start distribution through the usual commercial book outlets until (they said at Google) August 1.

You can still get the first 25 pages or order the ebook from the publisher’s site and then order the complete hard copy later. It really is worth reading and will probably spur you on in your oversight missions or your campaign against corruption if you, like me, are a whistleblower supporter. -GFS

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July 2, 2009 early afternoon

I heard from a reader today that the book is available directly through the publisher this month (July). Google, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble apparently won’t be able to ship it until August 1, 2009.

The link to order directly now (and receive the book in 5-10 days) from Universal Publishers is:

It will make invigorating reading. Let me know what you think.

-GFS

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After five years of hard researching work, Shelly Stark’s book on the Hidden Treuhand, utilized by Halliburton and others, will be out and available for purchase in July 2009. It will be available in most places including Amazon.com I understand. I repost the article Ms. Stark published last August to give you a peek into the important content of her book.

Anyone who supports whistleblowers and supports the overall clean up of the business practices of industry including defense contractors will find this a must read!

If you can contribute to Truthout as well, your efforts will be appreciated. Truthout continually prints news that is germane to stopping the corruption that has been overtaking our country the past decade. Please help them continue publishing with your generous donation. -GFS

Halliburton takes advantage of a European loophole that lets corporations hide beneficiaries and assets.

Little is known of a customary European legal practice that offers corporations and individuals an opportunity to profit from assets while maintaining complete anonymity of the beneficiary’s identity. This practice is referred to as “Hidden Treuhand” in the English language. The practice of Hidden Treuhand submits to legal local customs in Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg and Switzerland, but due to globalization, has moved beyond European borders via corporations and individuals, who put it to personal use.

The practice of Hidden Treuhand is relevant and unregulated. More and more, the relevant practice of Treuhand is used in hiding an asset owner’s identity from the outside world. Assets, whether they are corporate shares or fixed assets, can be owned in secret. The personal income derived from these assets can also be kept secret from tax authorities. An example of how Hidden Treuhand facilitates tax evasion is part of the latest scandal where thousands of Germans evaded tax through the services of the LGT Treuhand Bank in Liechtenstein, using a combination of Treuhand and foundations to hide true owner identity of bank accounts.

Hidden Treuhands in Europe impact the lives of American citizens. Hidden Treuhands enable even American corporations to hide the identity of beneficiaries, assets and income. Halliburton has a Hidden Treuhand embedded in its Austrian subsidiary. It prevents transparency regarding corporate activities.

The lack of transparency creates special advantages for some, and consequences for others such as governments, competitors, stockholders and citizens. For example, a beneficiary can evade personal income tax, because the income derived from a hidden asset is not linked to the beneficiary. There is another advantage to Hidden Treuhands that borrows from the concept of a “trust.” The “trust” concept allows for dividends to be removed. Money transferred to a subsidiary may be considered a dividend. By using a network of subsidiaries, favorable tax laws and banking secrecy, CEOs and insiders can profit without transparency. The Hidden Treuhand is an important aspect of what makes globalization so attractive to American and European corporations.

Given these attributes, it is alarming when a Hidden Treuhand is discovered in a subsidiary that is fully owned by Halliburton USA. Halliburton’s Hidden Treuhand is evident in the firm’s corporate records. Halliburton International GmbH was created in Austria in June of 1992, although another subsidiary, at the same address, was in existence in Austria since 1958. The new subsidiary, Halliburton International GmbH, has no apparent reasons for existing other than to house a Hidden Treuhand in its corporate structure, receive dividends from other subsidiaries and acquire other subsidiaries. This firm has no employees. It creates no income. Another company, Halliburton Company Austria GmbH, at the same address, could have equally performed whatever function this subsidiary has, but it has no Hidden Treuhand. The obvious conclusion is Halliburton USA needed a subsidiary with a Hidden Treuhand.

The Hidden Treuhand easily accomplishes tax evasion because dividends transferred to a subsidiary with a Hidden Treuhand can be anonymously distributed or used to purchase other holdings. For example, Halliburton International GmbH has acquired acquisitions in Russia and Kazakhstan that later disappear from the corporate records.

Halliburton attracts a certain limelight in connection with any Treuhand activities because of its link to a highly controversial war and Vice President Dick Cheney’s earlier association with Halliburton. We would have expected all ties to his former employer to be have been severed when he took office to avoid a conflict of interest. The impenetrability of the Hidden Treuhand makes it impossible to know who else is involved beyond the CEOs listed on Halliburton International GmbH historic corporate data.

Dick Cheney claims to no longer own stock in Halliburton, but he was its chairman and CEO for five years, and either hired or promoted many of the executives now running Halliburton, or formerly involved with the subsidiary with the Hidden Treuhand in Austria. It is highly unlikely the chief executive officer, Dick Cheney, would be unaware of the Austrian subsidiary’s existence, originally headed by the executive vice president and chief legal officer, Lester L. Coleman, of Halliburton International USA. But it is an absolute certainty Lester L. Coleman and all the other CEOs listed on Halliburton International GmbH corporate historic records do know of the subsidiaries existence and its Hidden Treuhand. It was the intention of these CEOs to set up a secret subsidiary in 1992 with a Hidden Treuhand embedded.

Perhaps more importantly, Halliburton’s CEOs, listed in the corporate historic records of Halliburton International GmbH in Austria, should know Hidden Treuhands could be used to undermine American security by providing a means for financing terrorists. Currently, one of the strongest arguments the US and the OECD are using against banks, lawyers and Treuhand activities in Europe to combat tax evasion and money laundering is how these activities can be used to fund terrorism. The Iraq War is one portion of the overall strategy of the ‘War on Terror’ that also includes preventing any funding for terrorism. It takes little imagination to see the huge potential Treuhands facilitate: creating a means for terrorists and criminal organizations to conceal their true identities and motives and yet work openly in the capitalist system.

Halliburton’s CEOs must be aware of the potential misuse of Hidden Treuhands, as they have not been particularly open about their own use of Hidden Treuhands to date. Halliburton simultaneously contracts to fight a “war on terror,” while utilizing the same nontransparent mechanisms concerned authorities seek to prevent access to by terrorists. Faced with a conflict of interest, Halliburton CEOs demonstrate with their silence a willingness to protect their own interests, and doing so while we are at war with an enemy that works in the shadows.

The noncompetitive contract awarded Halliburton was orchestrated by Vice President Dick Cheney and backed by the Bush administration. This contract has afforded an estimated US$1.4 trillion to US$3 trillion of US taxpayer money to flow through the coffers of Halliburton, virtually unmonitored and fraught with accounting irregularities. The receiver of much of this US taxpayer money is Halliburton USA, its affiliates and subsidiaries. One of the subsidiaries, the Austrian subsidiary, is capable of dispersing any money sent to it to unknown persons, without a hint of transparency.

The Hidden Treuhand is more than just a means of profiting without transparency; it is a national security threat, whether wielded by al-Qaeda or Halliburton. If Americans were brought into a war based on a profit motive while we were supposed to be focused on alleviating the threat of terrorism, it could amount to treason. This risk should be given some credence and investigated. For this reason, Halliburton’s corporate records were given to the US Internal Revenue Service. Maybe they will find something illegal, tax evasion for example, or maybe they will come back and say they found nothing illegal: The Hidden Treuhand is just a little bit naughty.

There is no transparency to a Hidden Treuhand, and, therefore, no means to identify the real benefactors. But the most important factor concerning a Treuhand contract is this: If a Treuhand contract is embedded in the corporate structure, then its sole purpose is to prevent the public from knowing the identity of the real stockholders. Who is calling the shots and who is benefiting is kept secret.

The “True Hands,” the true benefactors’ identity, is hidden from public knowledge; they remain anonymous and nameless in transactions, and that is the sole incentive for creating a Hidden Treuhand.

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Shelley Stark is the author of a forthcoming book, “The Hidden Treuhand: How Europe Offers US Corporations and Individuals an Opportunity to Hide Assets, Identity, and Income.”

This meeting of the Senate Military-Industrial Caucus will now come to order.

The chair recognizes the senator from Northrop Grumman for a question.

“We’ve noticed the increase in the amphibious ship fleet needs that go beyond traditional military missions,” said Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). “Do you see a continuing need for shipbuilding in the amphibious area?”

Of course, Senator. Nobody will hurt the DD(X) destroyers they build in Pascagoula.

Does the senator from General Dynamics have a question?

“Littoral combat ships,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.). “Do you believe that this program will play a vital role in our Navy’s future fleet?”

Certainly, Senator. Tell the folks in Mobile that their shipbuilding operation is safe. The chair now recognizes the senator from Boeing.

“I wanted to ask you today if you can tell me how you are taking into account the health and longevity of our domestic industrial base,” asked Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

Sure, Senator. Your constituents in Everett will get another shot at that aerial refueling tanker contract they lost to the Airbus consortium.

And so it went at yesterday’s hearing of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, attempting a bold reshaping of the military-industrial complex to meet the changing nature of war, pleaded with the lawmakers to rise above the powerful contractors that fund their campaigns and influence their elections. “The responsibility of this department first and foremost is to fight and win the nation’s wars,” Gates reminded them. “I know that some will take issue with individual decisions. I would ask, however, that you look beyond specific programs and instead at the full range of what we are trying to do.”

Not likely, Mr. Secretary. Lawmakers are perfectly happy to reform military procurement, as long as the cuts are not made in any of their back yards. The result will inevitably be that the Pentagon is forced to fund many programs it doesn’t want while shortchanging others it urgently needs.

Yesterday brought two of these NIMBY hearings to the Capitol complex. First, the House Appropriations defense subcommittee huddled with the secretary of the Army, Pete Geren, and the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey. Chairman Jack Murtha (D-Pa.), who has a solid reputation for giving the Pentagon things it doesn’t need, was once more concerned that the war fighters didn’t ask for more. “You only put $2 billion into the budget,” he complained about one project. “I assume you’ll ask for more money?”

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) complained about a “particular problem” in Virginia — the specter of traffic tie-ups because of a plan to relocate 20,000 Pentagon workers. Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) demanded that the Army rescind its plan to hire contractors at West Point. And Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) complained that the community around Fort Stewart has “overbuilt” in anticipation of more Army activity that never came. “We’ll find a way to reimburse the community,” Murtha assured Kingston. “We do it all the time.”

On the other side of the Capitol, senators were making similar cases to Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mississippi’s Cochran, who has a Navistar facility in his state that makes Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, started off with a question about “other uses” for the MRAP.

Alabama’s Shelby followed that with a bit of lobbying for the Army aviation school at Fort Rucker. “This is an urgent demand in Afghanistan right now,” he said.

The boosterism became complicated when lawmakers spoke up for rival contractors. Shelby, speaking for the Northrop Grumman-EADS partnership that wants to build Air Force tankers in Alabama, urged Gates to buy “the most capable tanker for our war fighters.” Murray, representing Boeing, the West Coast rival for the contract, countered: “We want the best war fighter, and we also want what’s best for the taxpayer, as well.”

Luckily for Boeing, the contractor had reinforcements on the committee in the form of Republican Sen. Kit Bond, a great fan of the F/A-18 and the C-17, parts of which just happen to be produced in Bond’s home state of Missouri. “Admiral Roughead recently stated that the F/A-18E/F is the aviation backbone of our Navy’s ability to project power ashore, and the numbers of the carrier-capable strike fighters will decrease between 2016 and 2020,” he complained.

“We will probably buy more in ’11,” Gates offered.

“Senator Bond, it’s a great airplane,” Mullen added. “It’s actually at a great price.”

Criminal probe of lawyers who botched Stevens case

04:08 PM PDT on Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Associated Press

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A seething federal judge dismissed the corruption conviction of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens on Tuesday and took the rare and serious step of ordering a criminal investigation into prosecutors who poisoned the case.

“In nearly 25 years on the bench, I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case,” U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said.

Sullivan appointed a special prosecutor to investigate Justice Department lawyers who repeatedly withheld evidence from defense attorneys and the judge during the monthlong trial. Stevens was convicted in October of lying on Senate forms about home renovations and gifts he received from wealthy friends.

The case cost Stevens, 85, a Senate seat he had held for 40 years. Once the Senate’s longest-serving Republican, he narrowly lost to Democrat Mark Begich soon after the verdict.

Now, the case could prove career-ending for prosecutors in the Justice Department’s public corruption unit.

After Sullivan dismissed the case, Stevens turned to his friends and held up a fist in victory as his wife and daughters broke into loud sobs.

“Until recently, my faith in the criminal system, particularly the judicial system, was unwavering,” Stevens told the court Tuesday, his first public comments since Attorney General Eric Holder announced he would drop the case. “But what some members of the prosecution team did nearly destroyed my faith. Their conduct had consequences for me that they will never realize and can never be reversed.”

The unraveling of the case overshadowed the facts of a trial in which Stevens was shown to have accepted thousands of dollars in undisclosed gifts.

Sullivan appointed Washington attorney Henry Schuelke to investigate contempt and obstruction by the Justice Department team. Schuelke is a former prosecutor and veteran defense attorney who oversaw a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into influence-peddling allegations against former New York Sen. Alfonse D’Amato in 1989.

Sullivan said the misconduct was too serious to be left to an internal investigation by the Justice Department, which he said dragged its feet before investigating. He criticized former Attorney General Michael Mukasey for not responding to complaints: “Shocking, but not surprising,” Sullivan said.

He worried aloud about how often prosecutors withhold evidence, from Guantanamo Bay terrorism cases to public corruption trials. He called on Holder to retrain all prosecutors in the department.

The decision to open a criminal case raises the question of whether the prosecutors, who include top officials in the department’s public corruption unit, can remain on the job while under investigation. The investigation carries the threat of prison time, fines and disbarment.

It also threatens to derail the investigation into other public officials, including Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, who has been under scrutiny by the same prosecutors now being investigated. Young’s lawyer attended Tuesday’s hearing but said nothing after it ended.

Subjects of the criminal probe are lead prosecutor Brenda Morris, the department’s No. 2 corruption official and an instructor within the department; Public Integrity prosecutors Nicholas Marsh and Edward Sullivan; Alaska federal prosecutors Joseph Bottini and James Goeke; and William Welch, who did not participate in the trial but who supervises the Public Integrity section and has overseen every major public corruption case in recent years.

Judge Sullivan repeatedly scolded prosecutors for their behavior during trial. After the verdict, an FBI whistleblower accused the team of misconduct and Sullivan held prosecutors in contempt for ignoring a court order.

The prosecution team was replaced and, last week, the new team acknowledged that key evidence was withheld. That included notes from an interview with the government’s star witness, contractor Bill Allen.

On the witness stand, Allen said a mutual friend told him not to expect payment for Stevens’ home renovations because the senator only wanted the bill to cover himself. It was damaging testimony that made Stevens look like a scheming politician trying to conceal his freebies.

But in the previously undisclosed meeting with prosecutors, Allen had no recollection of such a discussion. And he valued the renovation work at far less than what prosecutors alleged at the trial.

“I was sick in my stomach,” attorney Brendan Sullivan said Tuesday, recalling seeing the new evidence for the first time. “How could they do this? How could they abandon their responsibilities? How could they take on a very decent man, Ted Stevens, who happened to be a United States senator, and do this?”

The Justice Department only said in response that it would review the court’s order. The prosecutors under investigation either declined comment or did not respond to messages. But Paul O’Brien, a federal prosecutor newly assigned to the case, apologized to the judge on behalf of the department.

Despite the prosecutorial misconduct, the trial revealed that Stevens — regardless of Allen’s discredited testimony — accepted a massage chair, a stained-glass window and an expensive sculpture but never disclosed them on Senate documents.

None of that mattered Tuesday as Stevens gave what amounted to the election victory speech he never had a chance to give. Standing at the courtroom lectern wearing a pin of the U.S. and Alaska flags on his sweater, he recounted his career in government — from flying planes in World War II to serving as U.S. attorney to his storied career in the Senate.

He thanked his friends, his supporters and his wife. And he vowed to push his friends in the Senate for tough new laws on prosecutorial misconduct.

Then, with the prosecution team feeling the scrutiny that Stevens felt for years, he smiled, posed for pictures with his family outside the courthouse and said:

(AP) A federal safety inspector assigned to the airline involved in an air crash that killed 50 people in upstate New York in February warned of safety problems at the airline a year before the accident.

An attorney for Federal Aviation Administration inspector Christopher Monteleon said he reported problems with the flight testing program at Colgan Air of Manassas, Virginia, for its newly acquired Bombardier Dash 8-Q400s in January 2008. That’s the same type of plane that crashed Feb. 12 near Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

Among the problems Monteleon reported were that the Colgan test pilot exceeded the permissible speed limit for the Dash 8 and had difficulty properly landing the plane.

Test pilots typically are an airline’s most skilled pilots and are expected to train other pilots on how to fly new aircraft.

After Colgan, a regional air carrier, complained to the FAA about Monteleon, his FAA supervisor reassigned him to desk work and ordered him to have no further contact with the airline, his attorney, Debra Katz, said.

When Monteleon continued to press for action on safety concerns at Colgan and what he alleged was a cozy relationship between the agency and the airline, he was transferred or reassigned three more times, Katz said.

In March, Monteleon had a confrontation with an FAA attorney and was placed on administrative leave by the agency, Katz said. Monteleon told The New York Times, which first reported on his complaints Wednesday, that agency officials accused him of menacing the attorney.

Katz said in a letter to FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt that it was Monteleon, 64, a former pilot and 40-year veteran of the aviation industry, who felt threatened.

Monteleon has filed a complaint with the federal Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistleblower complaints, Katz said. He has also been interviewed by the Transportation Department’s Office of Inspector General, the agency’s internal watchdog, Katz added.

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown declined to discuss personnel actions taken involving Monteleon. She said his complaints about safety violations at Colgan were investigated by a special FAA team, which found some record-keeping and other problems but no violations of safety regulations.

“The bottom line was they didn’t find any major regulatory issues,” Brown said.

A spokesman for Colgan didn’t return a phone call from The Associated Press late Wednesday.

Aviation safety consultant Jack Casey said that if Monteleon’s complaints about the testing of the Dash 8 are correct – especially if a pilot significantly exceeded the aircraft manufacturer’s specified speed for the plane – they are very serious.

“It’s not unusual that you have a few little teething problems (when testing a new plane), but what he’s describing goes way beyond that,” Casey said.

A reader, claiming disgust at the accusations thrown by Boeing at Northrop Grumman over subbing for a larger “foreign” contractor has provided a list of Boeing Subsidiaries taken from Boeing’s own 2006 SEC Filing with the U.S. Government. This is very interesting…and disgusting too. It would appear they all do it. -GFS

A reader, claiming disgust at the accusations thrown by Boeing at Northrop Grumman over subbing for a larger “foreign” contractor has provided a list of Boeing Subsidiaries taken from Boeing’s own 2006 SEC Filing with the U.S. Government. This is very interesting…and disgusting too. It would appear they all do it. -GFS

A reader, claiming disgust at the accusations thrown by Boeing at Northrop Grumman over subbing for a larger “foreign” contractor has provided a list of Boeing Subsidiaries taken from Boeing’s own 2006 SEC Filing with the U.S. Government. This is very interesting…and disgusting too. It would appear they all do it. -GFS

A reader, claiming disgust at the accusations thrown by Boeing at Northrop Grumman over subbing for a larger “foreign” contractor has provided a list of Boeing Subsidiaries taken from Boeing’s own 2006 SEC Filing with the U.S. Government. This is very interesting…and disgusting too. It would appear they all do it. -GFS

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G. Florence-

Boeing- Our All American Defense Contractor that subs to EADS on AWACS. And this is different from Northrop Grumman subbing to EADS on the Air Force tanker how?

Meta

GFS

This blog is about whistleblowers and the conditions and situations that happen in their lives to create their whistleblower status. This blog is intended to inform, share, and support whistleblowers and those who support them.